Chapter 153: The Black Death (4)

Under the torches, there were menacing faces, which would not have been surprising if the carriage had come from the direction of Nancy, but since the carriage had come from Verdun, such an act was questionable.

The faltering light of the fire illuminated not only the faces of those who did not mean good, but also the cold light of the armor of steel and cowhide, the swords, the crossbows, the cold light of the coachman's indifferent eyes, and finally fell on one of the most richly dressed men in the crowd - the most opulent, because he was dressed in an apparently tailor-made steel armor, the surface of the armor was gilded, engraved with curly grass patterns, and the family coat of arms on his chest, and the coachman only paused for a moment, and then let out a sneer: "What?" he asked. Is even Mr. Revere's Viscount going out to rob now?"

The...... Since Mr. Viscount was wearing such armor, he did not want to hide his identity, but the other party was so presumptuous about his purpose, he couldn't help but be angryβ€”although it was true that in the past few hundred years, the lords of Revini were indeed very keen to rob merchants, but now the lords can collect taxes from commerce, minerals and land, and this kind of thing is rare.

"I'm not here to rob," said the viscount, surprisingly, unusually calm, "I have heard terrible news. ”

"Oh, what kind of news?" asked the coachman, still sitting high in the carriage, not moving at all, not feeling in the slightest that it was a great disgrace to a nobleman.

The Viscount's gaze slipped from the coachman to the door that was always closed, and the curtains on the glass windows were drawn so tightly that no gaps were exposed, and one almost wondered if it had been fixed on the window frame: "Tell the master of this place who you are and where are you going?"

"We have been sent here by an honorable man to do something of great importance, and as for what, Mr. Viscount, you have no right to know. ”

"Further on there is Nancy, and it is puzzling that the people of Lorraine are running to Verdun and that you are doing the opposite. Mr. Viscount said.

"I don't have to explain it to you. ”

"But to pass through my territory, you must have my permission. ”

The coachman was silent for a moment, "I have the king's permission. ”

Mr. Viscount seemed to be waiting for this sentence, and as soon as this sentence landed, he smiled: "Show me, sir, it's not that I don't want to believe you, but that your behavior is really strange." ”

The closed window suddenly opened, and Mr. Viscount took a step back in fright, but then stood up again, and stretched out a hand from the window, and his pale and slender fingers held a brass letterhead, and one of Mr. Viscount's attendants stepped forward to take it, and the Viscount took out the paperwork inside and looked at it, which indeed had the king's signature and seal on it, and his smile became a little bigger, not only did he not return the paperwork, but even continued to retreat into the crowd.

Other cloaked men with hoods pulled up surrounded them, and under the wide cloaks there was the sound of steel clashing, and it seemed that they were not unarmed peasants either.

"What do you want to do?" asked the coachman.

"To fulfill the duty that God has given us. The man at the head of the men said, and he looked up, his gray hair showing from the edge of his hood, he was not young, but his eyes were still sharp.

The man in the carriage sighed.

"It turns out that the Church of Rome had such an idea. He said, and from the moment he uttered the first word, the old man, who seemed confident and composed, looked incredulous.

"Ballas, it's you. The door of the carriage opened, and it was not the vampire prince, as the former Grand Inquisitor had thought, but the current Grand Inquisitor, Elarius.

The two presiding judges came face to face in this ironic way. Elehos smiled, as gentle and respectful as he had seen Ballas before, but Ballas knew that his true face was the exact opposite of his appearance, and that Elehos had leapt from an ordinary person to an ordinary person

After becoming the chief judge directly from an ordinary judge, he knew that this young junior, who was always smiling, was only afraid that he would have colluded with Cardinal Mazarin, otherwise, how could the Paris Inquisition be so quickly controlled by Elarius? I'm afraid that he has been waiting for a long time, but Barras he also has nothing to say about it, because he was the first to turn his back on the inner world, the king, and the bishop of Mazarin, and he went to Rome, but unfortunately things did not go as smoothly as the Pope and he thought, the king was safe and sound, Paris was at peace, and the bishop of Mazarin even took the opportunity to take the Inquisition under his command.

And their second plan failed.

Elarius looked at the hand of the former Grand Inquisitor, Baras, who did not have the bishop's ring on it, was it for this mission, or was it ...... The Pope did not fulfill his promise, it seems that it was the latter, after all, Barras came forward as a messenger of the Church this timeβ€”β€”- perhaps with this credit, he would have been a bishop or archbishop when he returned, but since their plot had already been guessed by Elelius...... Even the king did not make the wrong decision in his panic, and he appeared like a clown.

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Let's turn back a little bit, on the night when the King learned about the events of Nancy.

Knowing that the Bloodlines could ignore the plague and come and go freely, the task of bringing Philip, Duke of Orleans, out of Nancy was the only one they could do, but just before the king made his decision, he saw Elelius.

The king still knows a little about Elelius, this bold fellow, who seems to have been born with nothing to restrain him, except for the people of the inner world, who may be religious, but he is not devout to the Church of Rome, but the true God, and it is for this reason that he has only hatred for the Church of Rome, and no reverence for him, and he does not have the natural, condescending attitude of a sorcerer towards others, including kings and mortals, he ...... It should be said that he does not care about them at all, and always maintains his attitude on the relationship between the employed and the employer.

Perhaps someone else would have been unhappy with this attitude, such as the former Bishop of Mazarin, but Louis didn't care, there were too many such people in his time, and Ilarius and his people were still quite ethical, as far as he knew, since the neglect of Dunkirk, the two monks around him had never really slept - they used secret methods to keep themselves awake, so even if they were changed every once in a while, their life was irreparably damaged.

The king was speechless about this, and in fact, he had nothing to complain about the assassination of Dunkirk, for many reasons - he must be blamed, first of all, himself, not only insisting on completing the ceremony of entering the city, but also forgetting to take the cat with him, otherwise he could at least escape. So the king can only give them a lot of aid - from wheat to armor, it is said that they are still fighting werewolves and wizards in the inner world, but since the Mancini family bowed to the king, these monks in the inner world have also had a chance to breathe, and the wizards and they still look at each other, but there is no large-scale war anymore.

But just to be a crow that brings bad news, not enough to let the Grand Inquisitor come here himself, it can only be said that in addition to the changes in the Roman Church, what should he have been aware of?

What do you perceive? Bishop Mazaran said that since King Arthur, as long as he is a king, he will inevitably raise wizards around him, even the most pious kings, just as they have a sword in one hand and a shield in the other, and there are not a few rulers who use werewolves or goblins, and there are not a few rulers of demons, Louis raised wizards and werewolves, and has a close relationship with the prince of the blood family, and no one may know about it for a while, but the church must be clear, but they will not easily identify a king as a heretic, which is too dangerous for the Roman Church- They needed tangible evidence, or even half-truths, to shake Louis's position in the hearts of the nobility and populace as they had shaken the throne of Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV.

At this point, the development of the situation became clear, the Church had to use the plague to teach Louis XIV, the King of France, who had almost repeated the events of Avignon, a profound lesson, but also to weaken France again, so that the Church would not be threatened by a second real threat, and at the same time, the Duke of Orleans, who was taking up the post of governor of Lorraine, also gave them an opportunity, if the king ignored it, or gave up the pain, they would definitely take the opportunity to sow discord between the clan and the king, if the king wanted to ensure that his brother was safe, the blood clan would not be harmed by the plague was not the best person to turn to?

But the Church was not even willing to give up a cardinal, here it was just Ballas, a wretched creature who could be given up at any time, and when he saw Elelius, he looked desperate, he could go back to Rome, he could continue to be his monk or priest, but it was impossible to go further in this life......

"What about the vampires?" he asked.

Elelius looked at him with the eyes of a madman, waved his hand, and then starting with the coachman, everyone left the carriage and took off their hoods, they were all monks with their hair trimmed in the style of St. Paul, with solemn expressions, and they were equally contemptuous and pitiful to this former Grand Inquisitor, maybe Barras was just tired of being pawns or tools, weapons, but he chose the wrong person, the fall of the Roman Church, others did not know, could they not know? If it was only for the sake of power and pleasure, he should not have chosen Rome, the Roman political system was determined from the birth of the Church in the first or two hundred years, they were excluded from the beginning as an outlier, how could those bishops easily allow an outsider to join them, not to mention, Ballas was still a member of the inner world, and the bishops of Rome only wanted to be able to enslave them like cattle and horses, not on an equal footing with cattle and horses.

"There are no vampires, only vampire enemies here. Eleho drew a cross on his chest, "We're going to investigate whether the plague in Nancy was caused by a wizard or a dark creature." He looked at Viscount Revigny, who had hidden himself behind the priest: "Mr. Viscount, you can return the king's papers to us." ”

Viscount Revinny hesitated for a moment, and then suddenly his eyes flashed, and the iron gloves were empty, and he looked at Barras in horror, the bishop's envoy from Rome, but found that his face was as heavy as water, and he did not say a word, and in the carriage, and the monks outside the carriage each hung a silver cross, which shone in the firelight, and his face was ruddy, and his posture was calm, and he did not look very much like the legendary vampire.

Elelius had no intention of continuing to entangle with them, and since the man here was only an outcast, he sent two monks to come forward, and one of them easily moved aside the great tree, which required dozens of men to move, and the coachman and the passengers got into the carriage, and the carriage sped away again, leaving the bewildered group behind.

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Now that the king knew the church's intentions, he could not have thrown himself into the net. The people Barras was waiting for, or rather, the vampires didn't have to travel long distances like humans, they disguised themselves as doctors, plague doctors, and always wore black cloaks, elbow-length gloves, and bird's beak masks over their faces, looking through brass-rimmed circled glasses. Blurred lenses, heavy clothing, and the sun could hardly hurt them, and people avoided them, galloping during the day, leaving them behind at night, and turning them into smoke and being pushed away by the wind, and they or the king would not care about the little money they had to pay for them.

So when they arrived in Lorraine, they were even earlier than Elarius and the others, because they could walk through the wilderness, and they would not meet the church people at all.

It was only when they turned into bats and skimmed Nancy at night that they couldn't help but feel a tremble, the viciousness of the church was unimaginable to these non-people, from the sky, all they saw were groups of people, they were either lying on their backs or prostrate, but more people were climbing the castle, like swarms of ants climbing a wine glass full of honey, illuminating them of the burning forest, the smoke rising directly into the dark night sky, the firelight illuminating the smoke and bamboo, from coal black to crimson to bright golden yellow, such a beautiful scenery is refreshing, if you don't care about its origin。

"When are we entering the castle?" asked one of Theoderick's counts, as a member of the Vandro bloodline, after taking off his mask, he showed a pale and elegant face, except for those blood-red eyes, probably no one would regard him as an outlier, but his position in the Vandra family meant that his hands must have been stained with a lot of blood.

"Without further ado, we're going to enter the castle before dawn. Theoderick said that because of the witches' ravens, they knew that Philip, Duke of Orleans, had not yet contracted the plague, but the spread of the Black Death was always silent, and no one knew when pus would develop on their bodies and start to fever.